


Fall For a Shooting Star

by applejwoos (kenmarcadeblues)



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Astronauts, Established Relationship, Fluff, Light Angst, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, NASA AU, One Shot, Space Stuff™️
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-06 10:10:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17937827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenmarcadeblues/pseuds/applejwoos
Summary: i love you to mars(in-between the stars)and (every sweet mile to you i’ll come)back.





	Fall For a Shooting Star

**Author's Note:**

> this song gave me “i have to actually finish and post that space changlix thing” energy so give it a listen ^^ 
> 
> happy to be posting as usual, but i’m extra happy abt this because it’s my first try at this kind of au. but i think i can say, now, that i’d rather read someone else’s than do my own,,

Jisung blinked at the assortment of articles on his phone before clicking on one: ‘Meet Felix Lee: The 2nd LGBT Astronaut’,invited the eye-catching title.A second later, he registered that the name was familiar; and when the man’s photo loaded, nostalgia and dormant memories pooled into his chest.

 

_“I don’t know what to do. I don’t have a dream.”_

 

_“They say you gotta do what you love, right?”_

 

_“Yeah. I like that saying. But, just...I don’t know. Right now I don’t love anything.”_

 

_“Oh. Really? I thought maybe you loved the stars.”_

 

As Jisung read about the boy he once knew, who’d since grown into a confident and accomplished man, his lips quirked up into a smile.

 

Felix Lee was living his dream.

Felix Lee was doing what he loved.

Felix Lee was going to touch the stars.

 

☆ ☆ ☆

 

Faint clicks of typing halt as Changbin yawns into his hand. He pushes up his glasses and takes a sip from his steaming coffee—his fifth cup today.

 

He should probably slow down, but his body seems to need all the caffeine. Interpreting data is a bit of an energy sucker, once you’re at it for more than half an hour. That, and work feels more tedious when your boyfriend is millions of miles away instead of in the same building.

 

Changbin’s ears perk up as the deep tones of the main computer saturate the control center. His gaze snakes around his colleagues and their workstations until he sees the main computer’s keyboard, which is currently being used by a disappointed-looking Chan. He then follows the older man’s eyes to the middle monitor on the wall.

 

It’s a loading screen. Chan huffs, and so does Kun, who is supervising and taking notes on the situation at hand. “It connected just fine before…”

 

Changbin has his own tasks, doesn’t have any practical reasons for letting his focus wander away from the small screen in front of him, but this is the first time that he’s witnessed an attempt to establish video transmission to the spacecraft. He’d been off work when they’d done it before. Analysis can wait; a chance to see his boyfriend can’t.

 

Minutes crawl by before there is finally change on the monitor and pixels form an image. Chan sighs in relief as a headshot of Mitra greets him happily, the off-white, smooth-lined interior of the spacecraft behind her.

 

The video is a little laggy, but Chan wastes no time and launches into his checklist, inquiring about everything which can’t quite be verified or tracked by computers, to which Mitra responds diligently. She sounds hopeful and untroubled, for the most part, and weight is lifted off of Changbin’s heart. When Chan requests a visual check, the commander calls her whole crew to the cabin.

 

Now, Changbin is aware that the woman is joined by a total of four other people, but his tunnel vision only allows for sight of the skinny Australian with a bright smile; the mission’s research specialist, Felix Lee.

 

The H.E.L.L (Human Enveloping Launch Locomotive) had been launched two weeks ago, and Changbin hadn’t set eyes on Felix since the morning it left Earth’s atmosphere. Currently, Felix is dressed in a sweatsuit—identical to those of his crewmates, in fact—and has a tired look about him, with how his eyes aren’t open so wide, but to Changbin he still shines. (Felix is a star, and that’s what stars do.)

 

As Chan and Mitra prepare to sign off and cut the connection, members of the crew get in front of the camera one by one, saying their individual farewells. (It doubles as both a camaraderie builder and potential PR—who wouldn’t want to see astronauts being themselves on the job?)

 

When it’s Felix’s turn, he approaches the camera and sends a cheerful little, “Hi everyone! Hey, Chan,” in English before pausing to think, eyebrows squirming on his forehead. For a split second he looks elsewhere, then bites his lips before opening his mouth once again. “Binnie-hyung?” he says unsurely in his accented Korean, “Uh…well, I’m not sure if you’re around right now, but...just in case, I love you! Over and out!”

 

From the vantage point of his workstation, Changbin hears the final goodbye but doesn’t see the big screen cut to a blank blue. He removes his glasses and wipes away his tears, chest heaving without sound.

 

Mars is, under the most perfect conditions, 270 days away from Earth. This puts Changbin at a loss for Felix’s physical presence for roughly another year and a half.

 

_If only time were an illusion; and distance, too._

 

☆ ☆ ☆

 

“What would you do if I was there?” Changbin asks on Day 47. It’s quiet in the control center; from the hours of 12am to 4am, the number of staff dwindles, yet doesn’t disappear. Time stops for no one and space shuttles must be monitored from the millisecond they launch off the planet to the millisecond they land back home.

 

_If they have a chance to._

 

Changbin pushes the thought away violently before it can overpower him. He worked extra hours all week to get permission from Chan to use video call for personal use. He needs to keep it together for Felix’s sake.

 

“If you were here?” On Changbin’s screen, Felix grins at the thought, a little gleam of mischief in his round eyes. “I’d turn off the gravity-simulator, hold you up like Simba, and sing ‘Ah, zebenya—‘“ A snort leaves Changbin almost immediately and Felix giggles, bright noise blasting through the speakers and filling the space.

 

In typical Changbin fashion, the older man hurriedly throws on a half-assed face of unamusement. “Well, since you have nothing meaningful to say,” he quips, “I’m hanging up.”

 

“Who’s to say reenacting the Lion King isn’t meaningful?” Felix asks while mustering up a pout.

 

“This’s expensive tech we’re using and it’s wasted on you, Lix.” It’s a joke with a hint of truth.

 

Felix rolls his eyes. “Okay, okay. I think...I’d pull you into me and keep you there.” (Like a planet does to wayward space rock. Eventually the rock can become a moon, destined for orbit. Changbin never had a chance against Felix’s gravitational force.) “What would _you_ do, hyung?”

 

“Mm, I’d look out the window first.”

 

Felix hums in approval. “It hasn’t gotten old yet. Probably never will.”

 

Space is endlessly dark and unfathomably vast—when it’s empty. But when there is something visible to the human eye, it’s magic. Asteroids on jagged, uncertain paths; comets soaring with luminous tails. Although in the cosmic scheme of things these objects are merely dust motes caught in the sun’s rays—in and out of vision in less than a blink—they are still beauty unbound.

 

(And don’t even get Felix started on the stars. If not for his job obligations, he would never stop looking out the window during his waking hours.)

 

Images get transmitted back nearly every day, and Changbin sees some here and there, but Felix would love nothing more than to let his earthbound boyfriend experience these celestial entities in person.

 

“And then?” Felix asks.

 

“Then I’d just listen to you. Your heartbeat, your breaths.”

 

“And my singing?”

 

A blushes works its way through Changbin’s cheeks before he has a chance to acknowledge it. “Y-yeah,” comes his shy confession.  “Would you...sing for me?”

 

“‘Course, baby.”

 

And that’s how Changbin ends up with Felix’s sweet, breathy tone bouncing between his ears, the transmission from hours ago still fresh. He closes his eyes and sleeps the best he has in weeks.

 

☆ ☆ ☆

 

“This is gonna sound so nerdy and gross, but…” Changbin begins on the 100th night of the H.E.L.L’S mission. “I’m really thankful to have been born in the same space-time continuum as you, Felix. And on the same planet, too.”

 

Felix quickly averts his gaze, and Changbin can see the pink of his ears. “You’re—you’re right, that _was_ nerdy and gross,” he stammers. “I—can I say something even nerdier and more gross?” He looks up to see Changbin nodding interestedly. The astronaut gets close to the camera and cups a hand at his mouth before offering a conspiratorial, “I feel the same way. The universe did good.”

 

Changbin cracks a smile and then hums contentedly. He rests his chin on his hands as his fond gaze flickers from the camera, to Felix’s eyes on-screen, and back again. He feels warm, but not as warm as he would if he could kiss his boyfriend.

 

“Although,” Felix decides to pipe up after a moment, “there might be a million other universes in which we meet.”

 

“There might be.” A universe where Felix doesn’t embark on the most dangerous space exploration mission in all of history. Or one where he’s not an astronaut at all, and there’s no risk of oxygen loss or explosions or a million threats to a human’s life. What if, somewhere sometime, he’s on a stage, sharing his voice with ears other than Changbin’s instead of traversing a little slice of the Milky Way’s abyss where nobody would hear him scream?

 

Changbin breathes in and repeats these three certainties to himself:

 

_Felix Lee is living his dream._

_Felix Lee is doing what he loves._

_Felix Lee is touching the stars._

 

And after forever and a second, he says, “But I’m glad to be in this one.”


End file.
